TRIGGER WARNING So I don’t talk much about trauma on this blog anymore. And you know what? It’s a relief. I started to face the abuse and assaults I survived when I was 25. Last month I turned 39. I’ve been at this 14 years. And I don’t expect it’s a journey that’s ever reallyContinue reading “Life Goes On: Trauma Revisited”
Category Archives: Healing
The Four Stages of Migraine
At the age of 31, I learned that the body is irrevocably tied to others. After violence from two young men, my health rapidly deteriorated. Migraines became more frequent and eventually chronic. Within three years, I had become too disabled to work. Our culture tells us that health and weight signal personal virtue. That “willContinue reading “The Four Stages of Migraine”
Commonality
I cannot thank you enough. For in reading my story, you have become part of it now, too. All survivors need to be heard. Need to be believed. It is part of how we can heal each other. It is a gift. Thank you. But my story has only been a grain of sand inContinue reading “Commonality”
Reconnection
One morning I woke up, and my teeth were not clenched anymore. My face wasn’t twisted by nightmares. I had grieved for more than a year, and I felt cleansed. I could shelve books beside men in the stacks, and I no longer wanted to punch them. I no longer imagined a knife in myContinue reading “Reconnection”
Mourning
The first thing it makes space for is sorrow. As the rage and terror ebb away, the grief can overwhelm us. For me, I think it was the grief, more than anything else, that I feared. I had lifted my rage against it like a shield. Hadn’t trauma cost me enough? How dare anyone, evenContinue reading “Mourning”
Remembrance
In many faith traditions, remembrance is a sacred act. A devotion to God. Buddhism in particular offers a definition of remembrance that echoes this stage in trauma recovery. The Pali term sati can be translated as both mindfulness and memory. The Satipatthana Sutta teaches that sati enables us to see the true relationship between all things. We must awakenContinue reading “Remembrance”
Safety
I knew safety was the first step towards healing after trauma. But I had thought that simply meant pushing my assailants out of my life and locking the door behind them. Done. I hadn’t understood that was only the beginning of the beginning. Safety is not achieved by the absence of the perpetrator. Safety isContinue reading “Safety”
The Stations of the Cross
Nothing, other than chronic illness, has acquainted me more intimately with death than trauma. Through the violence that one body can do to another, trauma demonstrated my fragility, my transience, my mortality. It showed me, too vividly, that my bodily autonomy, and even my life, could end at any moment if a man decided toContinue reading “The Stations of the Cross”
On Father’s Day Weekend
My father kept an old Yamaha acoustic guitar in his bedroom. Sometimes I ran my child-round fingertips over the strings just to see if it was still in tune. It was, then. I whispered secrets into the sound hole, and it always whispered back. It smelled of dust and spruce and something metallic, like aContinue reading “On Father’s Day Weekend”
Healing Through Dance
Because trauma is of the body, it must be healed through the body. I needed a safe space where I would be supported, where I could practice trust, where I could begin healing in my body. Only one place could offer me that. The dance studio. * * * I was 30 years old. IContinue reading “Healing Through Dance”
The Trailer Park MFA 
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